I go to the grocery store with the best of intentions. I am enticed by the vivid colors of fresh, organic produce and always have a plan for what I buy. More often than not, those plans go by the wayside as I get busy with my job and working on my manuscript. Since I can’t bear the thought of all that lovely produce going to waste, my intricate plans become soup.

I like making soup. I rarely need a recipe for it and I can have dinner done in the time it takes vegetables to cook: often a half hour or less. My soups all start the same: sweat chopped onion in a stock pot, add garlic, add water or vegetable stock, add washed grains if I’m using them, add vegetables after grain has cooked, add canned or pre-cooked beans, heat through, eat. Tasty and simple. My last soup was created because I’d purchased some beautiful collard greens intending to make a lemon-chopped greens salad, didn’t get to it, and needed to use them up. Why soup? Well…

…I’m not that familiar with how to cook collard greens. I tried the Sicilian Collard Greens from Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet when I first became vegan but overcooked the greens. The memory of the horrid bitter mass they became is still with me and I haven’t tried that recipe again. My sister likes collard greens but, as she cooks hers with bacon fat, that recipe isn’t an option for me. I perused my cookbooks and thought that a recipe for collard greens, wild rice, and black-eyed pea soup from Robin Robertson’s 1000 Vegan Recipes sounded good. I had to adapt it as I had rice and greens and very little of the other ingredients but that’s what I love about making soups: you don’t need to follow a recipe. Throw everything in a pot and it’s very difficult to go wrong. I made notes of replacements I could make with what I had on hand and read my new recipe out to my family. They entered it into their Weight Watcher’s App and, finding the total point value satisfactory, dinner was planned.

Robin Robertson’s cookbook was one of the first I purchased when making the switch to a vegan lifestyle. I figured I’d have all I needed with 1,000 recipes and have found this cookbook to be eminently useful. The best tip is to either steam or simmer tempeh for 30 minutes before using it in a recipe as doing so takes out that bitter aftertaste. I also appreciate these recipes are more of a guideline. I’ve made some recipes while adhering to every jot and tittle but some don’t include enough herbs and spices for my liking. I thought as much with this soup recipe and added a few of my favorites. Most spices are free on my family’s diet plan so I can indulge my inner mad kitchen scientist.

My version of the soup was excellent. The entire kitchen was filled with mouth-watering scents as the soup cooked and I adjusted the original recipe so everything was cooked in one pot. This is a great idea if all the soup is going to be consumed in one sitting, not so much if you’re planning on leftovers. I’ve found that greens left in soup overnight take on an unappetizing smell. This happened to my delicious soup and I was reminded that I’d made this observation once already. Hopefully, now that I’ve twice been left with no leftovers (something that annoys me), I’ll remember to cook only the amount of greens that can be consumed in one sitting. If my greens are in such bad shape they won’t last while I heat leftovers, the freezer is always a viable option.

Nasty leftover greens aside, I can’t say enough good things about this soup. It satisfies both senses of taste and smell, is soothing to the tummy, and-when paired with a slice of molasses cornbread-makes for a filling meal. The cornbread is made from one of my mother’s recipes and I’m sharing it with her permission. Since my recipe breaks enough from Ms. Robertson’s; I’m sharing it as well. Two recipes in one post!

Place the chopped onion in a stock pot over medium low heat and let cook 5 minutes. Add minced garlic and let cook until onions are translucent, about 2 minutes more. Add a small bit of vegetable broth if onions and garlic begin to stick.

Note: Only chop all the greens and add them to the soup of all of the soup is going to be consumed in one sitting. If not, chop the equivalent of one large frond per person and cook in a separate pot of boiling, salted water until collards are tender. This takes about 20 minutes. Drain the collards and divide them among the bowls when the soup is complete. Stir and enjoy.